By all accounts, Ned Brooks is a fairly average guy. He has a wife, three kids, and a house in Norwalk, Connecticut. Ned considers himself semi-retired at age 65. I became acquainted with Ned’s story as he shared it with journalist Stephen Dubner, who hosts the popular podcast, Freakanomics.
Several months ago, Ned was listening to an earlier episode of the show where Nobel prize-winning economist Al Roth was interviewed about his research. This research into commerce algorithms caught Ned’s ear as the show discussed strategies to match kidney donors with potential patients. Ned had never once considered donating a kidney before that moment, but with his business background, the economics of the situation intrigued him.
Roth’s research suggested that it frequently takes just one altruistic donor to kick-start a chain of events that could see anywhere from three to forty-three people on the waiting list receive donated organs. A generous donor is a person who donates an organ to the “list” as an unselfish gesture, not because of a personal relative or acquaintance with a need. Ned decided at that moment that he wanted to be screened to be a kidney donor, even though he didn’t know anyone personally who needed one. So, he stepped forward as an altruistic donor, literally willing to give someone else the gift of life. When asked why, he said, “Without it being too much of a stretch, my one wholly redundant organ can potentially change and improve the lives of hundreds of people…There were 5,355 kidney transplants from living donors last year, but there are over 100,000 people on the waiting list right now for a kidney.”
In a surprise move (to Ned at least), Dubner brought in the woman who received Ned’s kidney. Danielle is a mother of three who experienced complications shortly after the birth of her third child. These complications resulted in severely reduced renal function, ultimately necessitating a kidney transplant. Ned had never met nor even spoken with Danielle before that moment when Dubner delivered his on-the-air introduction. Ned heard her voice and immediately broke down weeping. Intellectually, he knew that his kidney had gone to someone who needed it but that someone was anonymous. They didn’t have a face, a name, or a voice. Being introduced to Danielle was emotionally overwhelming for him—and it wasn’t only Ned who wept. When asked to read Danielle’s letter to Ned, thanking him for what he had done for her and her family, long-time journalist Stephen Dubner also began to cry—right in the broadcast.
I believe that when humanity is confronted by an act of pure selflessness, whether believer or non-believer, we’re given a glimpse of the Divine. It’s a glimpse of what we’re made to be—beings created in the selfless image of God. But unfortunately, our finite and corrupt natures see benevolence and altruism as so wholly foreign to the human experience that we cannot process the response. So we weep.
“…as we avail ourselves of His grace and receive the blessings He proffers us, we have something with which to help others. Filled with gratitude, we give to others the blessings that have been freely given us. Thus receiving and imparting, we continue to grow in grace…”
E. G. White, My Life Today, p. 176
Every day we receive opportunities to positively impact the people around us—those we know personally and those we don’t. Your positive impact doesn’t have to be something as invasive as donating a kidney, though God may impress you to do just that. Start where you are. Start with a smile, a kind word, or an altruistic gesture with nothing expected in return. But when you do it, do it for this reason: that the recipient might, through your actions, be brought face to face with the selfless, loving, entirely altruistic Creator of the Universe.